AWS Terms of Use and Website Privacy Policy

AWS Terms of Use and Website Privacy Policy

This Statement sets forth the current practices of the American Welding Society (AWS) regarding the collection and use of information relating to the AWS Web site and other activities of AWS.

AWS created its policy with a fundamental respect for the rights to privacy of our members, customers and visitors.

Although most of AWS's Web site can be viewed by all site visitors, some pages are restricted to the use of AWS members, AWS committees, AWS staff, and AWS affiliates. These pages may be accessed only with the use of a membership number and/or a login name and password.

Information collection and use

When registering for our educational events or trade shows, using our Web site, ordering products, customizing Web pages, and signing up for certain selected services (such as free subscriptions), you may be asked for information about yourself, including but not limited to contact information (such as name, e-mail address, mailing address and phone number) or demographic information (such as job title and purchasing responsibilities, company information and professional certification).

If you sign up to become a member of AWS, you are asked for personal information such as your education level, interests, and date of birth. This information is used to better understand our membership and is not disclosed to outside organizations.

Some of our publications, products and services are free to subscribers who meet certain demographic criteria. Independent auditors may need to certify the eligibility of these subscribers. In order to do that, we may ask you for information (such as mother's maiden name) that we disclose to the auditors strictly for audit verification purposes.

For our services that require payment (such as certain events, products and subscriptions), we collect credit card information (such as account name, number and expiration date), which is used for billing purposes only, and is not otherwise shared, except with a reputable third party processing vendor. AWS uses secure socket layer (SSL) technology when you make purchases or send credit card and login information to AWS.

We offer some interactive and community features such as discussion boards, webcasts, news channels and user profiles. Personal information sent or posted via such features becomes public information for which we are not responsible.

We have features through which you may submit information to us (such as our feedback forms and requests for updates). Requests for service, support or information may be forwarded as needed to best respond to a specific request. Under some circumstances, we may retain e-mails and other information sent to us for our internal administrative purposes, and to help us better serve customers.

From time to time we may invite you to provide information via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and therefore you have a choice whether to disclose requested contact information (such as name and mailing address) and demographic information (such as zip code or job title). In addition to other uses set forth in this policy, contact information collected in connection with surveys and contests is used to notify the winners and award prizes and may be shared with sponsors of such surveys or contests.

Automatically collected data

Web servers automatically collect information about visitors, and ours does as well. This information includes the date, time, and navigation history of the session, as well as your browser type, operating system, and IP address. Automatically collected data may be used to deliver content specific to your interests and to honor your preferences.

We use "cookies," (a "cookie" is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user). Cookies make it possible for us to reduce the number of times you are required to login or to tailor the Web site to fit your interests. We also may use cookies to offer you products, programs, or services. Most Internet browsers allow you to erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please refer to the instructions or help screen of your browser to learn how it handles cookies.

Some of our business affiliates may use cookies on our sites in ads or promotions. We have no access to or control over these business affiliates' cookies, so we urge you to read their privacy policies for information.

Information about you that may be stored in our database

We may check the information you have provided during the shopping process or via any of our forms, e-mail, forums or discussion groups against any information we have about you in our customer database. We do this to ensure that we maintain the most current and accurate information about you as a valued customer.

Our database may contain your name, title, affiliation, industry classification, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address, if you provide them. We may also collect additional information about you including but not limited to: site registration, member ID numbers and your participation with AWS (magazine subscriptions, offices, committees, councils, boards or task forces on which you serve or have served, membership status, meetings attended, products purchased, events attended, etc.).

How we use information about you

Automatically collected data such as cookies and log files help us understand the interests of our visitors in order to enhance their experience on our sites. We also use this information for our internal security audit log, trend analysis and system administration, and to gather broad demographic information about our user base for aggregate use.

We may use information you have provided to process transactions you request. We may also use this information to inform you of new products and upcoming events that may be of interest to you, based on your participation in AWS activities, purchases of products, or interests in news items and technologies you have indicated. You may choose not to receive these communications.

We may combine demographic information you have supplied with site usage data to produce general profiles about your preferences in the content of the site and advertising.

We may use the information you provide about yourself to fulfill your requests for our products, programs, and services, to respond to your inquiries about our offerings, and to offer you other products, programs or services that we believe may be of interest to you.

We sometimes use this information to communicate with you, such as to notify you of products and events or when we make changes to our subscriber agreements, to fulfill a request by you for an online newsletter, or to contact you about your account with us.

We may use information that you provide about others to enable us to send them your gifts or messages. From time to time, we also may use this information to offer our products, programs, or services to them.

The information we collect in connection with our online forums and communities is used to provide an interactive experience. We use this information to facilitate participation in these online forums and communities and, from time to time, to offer you products, programs, or services.

If you choose to submit content for publication (e.g., a "letter to our editors"), we may publish your name and other information you have provided to us.

We sometimes use the non-personally identifiable information that we collect to improve the design and content of our site and to enable us to personalize your Internet experience. We also may use this information in the aggregate to analyze site usage, as well as to offer you products, programs, or services.

We may disclose personally identifiable information in response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena. We also may disclose such information in response to a law enforcement agency's request, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our terms of use, or as otherwise required by law. In addition, we may transfer information about you if we are acquired by or merged with another entity.

Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personally identifiable information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Notice.

We may on occasion combine information we receive online with outside records to enhance our ability to market to you those products or services that may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive marketing information from this site, click here for instructions on how to make your request.

We will not use or transfer personally identifiable information provided to us in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing you with an opportunity to opt out of these unrelated uses.

Shared data

We partner with other third parties to provide specific services. For example, exposition registration services may be provided by a third party. These third parties are not allowed to use information about you except for the purpose of providing these services.

We may share aggregated or composite information that does not identify you personally with our advertisers, exhibitors and business affiliates. AWS may be required to provide information about any of its customers or prospective customers to law enforcement or government agencies.

Security

When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL.

Links??This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that AWS cannot be responsible for the content of other sites or for the privacy practices of other sites. We do not necessarily endorse the content of other sites. We urge you to read the privacy statements of Web sites that collect personally identifiable information.

Students and children

AWS will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under 13 years of age, unless it is necessary to respond to a one-time request. Once the request has been answered, AWS will delete the requesting child's personally identifiable information.

If you are younger than 13, you must get permission from your mother or father or legal guardian before you enter your name or any information about yourself on this Web site. Do not enter your name, e-mail address, telephone number or any other information that might help identify you or your family or where you live, whether in response to a form, in a chat room or on a bulletin board.

Preferences, permission, opt-out??If you wish to be excluded from marketing by AWS via mail and/or e-mail, phone or fax, please contact our Membership Department at (800) 443-9353 or e-mail membership@aws.org to make that change to your account.

Updates to this privacy statement??AWS may, in its sole discretion, update this statement at any time by posting the amended statement on the Web site, and it shall be effective upon posting.

Contact, questions, comments, complaints??If you would like to communicate with AWS regarding privacy issues, or have questions, comments, or complaints regarding this Web site or its policy practices, or if you feel that AWS is not abiding by our privacy policy statement, please contact our Membership Department at (800) 443-9353 or e-mail membership@aws.org.